Good morning everyone. Well at least, it was morning here at the time I was writing this. For everyone else it might be good afternoon or evening, so I’ll just say hello and welcome to another Naruto manga breakdown.

This last week we were finally given our first glimpse back into the past regarding the battle between Hashirama Senju and Uchiha Madara and although we seem to have entered this battle at the half-way mark, that didn’t keep it from being quite the spectacle.

And you thought Paris Hilton was bad when it came to pet fashion.

Unfortunately, much like the last chapter, this chapter didn’t really give us any direct information in the form of words and remained more flash than substance. At least, that would be the case for many readers who might not have keener eyes.

However, for those who were looking closely enough, this latest release did manage to leave us a lot of visual clues worth discussing and reflecting upon, with the first being given to us by none other than Madara.

Playing catch, ninja style!

Now, for those of you who read the last breakdown, you might recall how I mention that Hashirama had essentially used the Rasengan against Madara when he caught his Bijuu Bomb and retaliated with it in the palm of his hand (or at least, in the palm of the hand of the giant wooden avatar he summoned). I also mentioned how the Rasengan was a technique that was originally developed by the fourth through observing the Bijuu Bomb and drawing inspiration from how it was comprised.

Well, now we’ve been given another symbolic comparison between the Bijuu Bomb and the Rasengan, only this time, it’s more of a direct reflection of Naruto’s Rasenshuriken technique. The way Madara placed his Susanoo blades within the Bijuu Bomb and then fired it in the form of a spinning mass of chakra causes it to behave in a manner that is practically identical to Naruto’s Rasenshuriken, but once again, whether this comparison was an intentionally symbolic reference to the link between the Bijuu Bomb and the Rasengan or just a coincidence remains to be seen, though I personally believe it has some purpose at the very least.

Another visual clue we got in this chapter was from Hashirama himself as he took the battle up a level to compete with his increasingly powerful adversary.

Well, at least now we know where Itachi’s infatuation with face lines comes from…

This is by far one of the most interesting visual clues we receive in this manga, mostly because of the mystery behind Hashirama’s transformation. The first questions that would arise from this, of course, would be “what kinda of transformation is this?” and so far, at least, a few theories have already been brought up by some of our readers.

Two of the most prominent theories involve a relation to Tsunade’s Rebirth Regeneration Jutsu and to the Sage Mode transformation, both of which share some aesthetic resemblances to Hashirama’s own transformation. The only question is, which of the two are the closest?

Whatever you do, don’t follow the lines down…

Firstly, let’s take a look at Tsunade’s “Yin Seal Release: Creation Rebirth” technique. As far as aesthetic resemblances go, it does share some similarities to Hashirama’s own transformation, such as the apparent seal on the forehead (Though Hashirama’s takes the form of rings while Tsunad’es is a diamond shape) and the line-type markings running down the face.

It is also worth noting that Madara once mentioned before that Hashirama also had a technique that allowed him to heal without hand seals and that Tsunade is now using “the same ability Hashirama possessed”. Following this statement, one might presume that the most logical conclusion would be that Hashirama’s technique is exactly the same as Tsunade’s and that he used it to store up chakra in case he was in a pinch and needed some extra oomph. While this certainly may be the case, there was one major difference I noticed between Hashirama’s jutsu and Tsunade’s.

This manga is clearly obsessed with eye transformations…

If you observe the image above. You’ll notice that Hashirama’s eyes change as well, not just with the markings around them, but within the pupil itself, which undergoes a complete change in colour as well. There is also a pigmentation around the eyes in a shape almost identical to Naruto’s Sage Mode transformation, also shown above.

While both the changes in eye colour and the pigments around the eyes can be observed in Naruto’s Sage Mode, neither can be seen in Tsunade’s own Creation Rebirth Jutsu, which may suggest that Hashirama’s jutsu has a relation to Sage Mode as well. This of course, brings up a third possibility to our ever growing list of theories, and that is that Hashirama’s transformation is a mix between both Sage Mode and Tsunade’s Yin Seal Release.

The idea is that like Tsunade’s technique, Hashirama’s stores chakra over time within a seal, which can then be released whenever it is needed. However, unlike Tsunade’s technique, which stores her own chakra within the seal, Hashirama may instead store the same external natural energy that Naruto uses to enter Sage Mode, which he could then release to acquire what could be seen as his own version of the Sage Mode transformation. In a sense, it would be similar to how Naruto uses Kage Bunshins to accumulate and store natural energy for him and then disperses them to instantly transform, only the forehead seal would effectively replace the function of the Kage Bunshin itself.

It would also mean that the seal on Hashirama’s forehead may, in fact, function similarly to the way a “cursed seal” does, seeing as how we have recently learned that the cursed seal itself works by collecting and storing natural energy within itself until it is needed to be released by the user, thus making it just another form of Sage Mode.

If your mind isn’t sploding right now, then you haven’t thought about all of this enough yet.

I would also like to point out that since we’ve learned that the cursed seal is also related to the intake of natural energy, I’ve noticed that in all cursed seal transformations and in Naruto’s Sage Mode, the user’s eyes always turn gold or yellow in colour. The only case I can’t confirm for this theory is with Kabuto, seeing as how we have not seen his transformation in colour yet. If Hashirama’s eyes have turned gold now, it would definitely serve as a link between his current transformation and the intake of natural energy used in both cursed seal transformations and Sage Mode transformations. In fact, one might even go as far as to say that Hashirama may have been the first to develop the cursed seal itself (Though he may not have called it such) and that Orochumari merely used knowledge of it to develop his own version using Juugo’s unique cells, which seem to continuously draw in natural energy.

Phew, now that I’ve gotten all of that mumble-jumble out the way, let’s hear your vote on what you believe might explain this mystery.

Though all these details definitely an interesting topic that I feel is worth discussing, for now I’ll leave it to all of you to build upon. There is, however, one other visual clue that I’d like to bring up that I observed in this chapter, and it comes from the Mokuton summon Hashirama called out.

You don’t suppose Hashirama is about to give Madara a big round of applause, do you?

*Takes deep breath.*

Okay… so now what do we have here, you might ask? Well, to be honest, this was something I only noticed the second time I read this chapter, but when I think about what Hashirama summoned, it started to remind me of Gedo Mazo. The reason is that both the Gedo Mazou and Hashirama’s summon are both made out of Mokuton and both are humanoid, statue-like figures.

Notice how both statues even look similar with the way they are sitting?

If we took it a bit further, by pointing out the fact that Gedo Moza is actually the physical body of the Juubi’s, we can actually form another link between it and the statue that Hashirama summoned – which is also referred to as Shin Suusenju (True Thousand Hands) – and that is that in its recent transformation, the Juubi’s tails began to take on the form of hands, while its body became somewhat more humanoid as well.

While this might make both of these subjects extremely effective at spanking naughty children, I believe the link between the two may run deeper than that, as many things often do in this manga. However, these are not the only two humanoid-like avatars with multiple arms. There is another that we’ve seen being summoned by the Uchiha in the form of Susanoo, particularly in its perfect form.

Pinocchio Susanoo lied about not cutting the mountain in half.

Even in its incomplete state, Susanoo has been depicted as having multiple arms, whether being summoned by Sasuke, Itachi or Madara. In its complete form, both its size, scale and power seems to be similar to that of Gedo Mazou (before becoming the Juubi) and the Shin Suusenju Hashirama has just called to the battlefield in this latest chapter. Even the name Susanoo itself starts off sounding phonetically similar to that of Suusenju, so that might be another clue linking the two as well.

Given all these similarities, could it be said that these three beings are somehow related to one another in a similar way as to how Amatarasu, Susanoo and Tsukyomi are? When we consider that the Juubi itself has even been referred to by Kurama as an ancient god that is the progenitor to all living things, are they all perhaps forms of ancient deities that once ruled over the world?

Another theory is that Susanoo and Shin Suusenju are two creations born from the Juubi’s power itself. Given that the Sage – as the Juubi’s Jinchuuriki – split his power between his two sons, it stands to reason that some of the Juubi’s own chakra might have been inadvertently split along with it in a similar manner. For all we know, Susanoo may actually be comprised of some of the Yin half or spiritual energy of the Juubi, while Shin Suusenju is made up of some of the Yang half or the physical body, which may even explain why Susanoo appears to be comprised purely of chakra or energy while Shin Suusenji has a more physical, tangible body.

So, what happens when a pretty mom marries an ugly dad? Well, you get a child that’s pretty ugly…

Unfortunately, for now we can only hypothesize as to what the truth is. There may indeed be a link here, but there may also very well be none whatsoever, which would make all of this useless theorizing on my part. Either way, it would be nice to see what you guys think on the matter or if anyone else has any other suggestions or theories they’d like to contribute. One thing I can say for certain though is that I think it would be cool if we could see a giant humanoid battle between Madara’s perfect Susanoo and Hashirama’s Shin Suusenju.

Either way, that’s all from me this week. I would take this a bit further, but my breakdown has reached the point where its just about ready to burst as it is, so for now, I’ll leave it here and present you with last week’s Bubbliton Contest winner.

Tanwir Ahmed: The Wuxi finger hold.

For this week, I decided to leave out the Bubbliton, partly because it hasn’t received many entries lately and partly because I don’t feel there are any screens in the currently released chapter that would promote many attempts at humor.

So, for now, I’ve decided to give myself some time to think of something that may act as a decent substitute for the Bubbliton in the case that it has worn out its stay here on these breakdowns. Though some suggestions were made in last week’s comments (Yes, I have been reading them), I would still like to encourage you all to come up with some more ideas you might think are fun.

Yeah, that’s roughly the conclusion I came to in my breakdown, though I went into more detail about how he went into the transformation and that the method he used to transform might be related to the cursed seal or Tsunade’s Yin release seal.

Naruto’s Sage mode is the Frog, Kabuto the Snake, I believe Hashirama’s is the perfect Sage mode. A complete understanding of Natural Chakra, since Wood Release is seen as a “life” Jutsu, I believe his Sage mode is not just an ability to gain and store natural chakra but being able to create life by using “Sage Mode” he creates life within himself. Healing himself similar to Tsunade but this “Life Force” doesn’t just heal the injuries but creates the new cells without shortening the lifepan of the user.

Hashirama bring in the aspect of Buddhism while Madara brings the hard line anceint Japanese Religions. Their Jutsu are molded with these ideals and even Rinnegan is mark as a Buddist technique (inspired by)

Great breakdown ten I do not think is stunades Yin releases since he has no mark to show were he stores his chakra…I’m also kinda eh on the sage mode right now it looks like it is but I thought it was stated earlier in the serious that jiraya was the only one able to attain the rank of sage. Now that u mention kabuto it makes me wonder if sasuke can achieve sage mode from the hawks? And if he does then he would be on par with naruto since naruto right now has the nine tails maybe sasuke can go susanoo sage mode on naruto in the final battle.

@pein are you saying that the 1 wood realised is and advanced for of sage mode or a jutsu corresponding to it?

Awesome breakdown! I think it was pretty clever the way Madara used Susanoo as armor on the Fox.

We need to remember that Hashirama was the original and that what Naruto and Tsunade do are merely derivatives that are “incomplete/modified/adapted” versions of what Hashirama was doing here. He orignated sage mode and the healing technique ( which seems to be one technique here) Tsunade and Naruto merely utilize different aspects of it, in their own unique ways. Obviously their physical and “spiritual” makeup are different so to use the technique requires some adaptation. so i agree with what you said in the post.

Also what if….. the Gedo Mazo is the Shin Suusenju with it’s hands chained, it’s eyes poked out and the extra hands cut off? I’m just saying that’s what the picture looks like… I love it!

I’d like to believe Hashi’s transformation is just regular Sage Mode. Albeit a more earthly form. I think he has mastered true sage mode in which he doesn’t have a distinct root in his teachings like Naruto (frogs) and Kabuto (Snakes) had. I think he taught his Senju brethren how to conserved and save energy without using Natural Energy. So Tsunades technique could be a result of that. I correlate Tsunades technique to that of the Rasengan. It was created from a natural occurence. Rasengan from Biju Dama, and Yin Release healing from Natural Energy consumption/conservation.

I thought the Shuriken and Rasengan models were a representation of Naruto and Sauske’s tools of choice. Sauske was always using shuriken in the first half. Naruto styled his wind-release based on that fact. I think Naruto shaped his wind release rasengan like a shuriken as and ode to Sauske. So I thought Hashi using rasengana and Madara using shuriken was another allusion to Naruto and Sauske’s relationship.

To be honest, I don’t even know what that thing is that Hashirama summoned. How is that thing going to be effective? Are it’s hands going to extend to hold down or pull Kurama away from the Susanno armor?

I think that True Thousand Hands was created to match the height of Madaras Perfect Susanoo.

Also, why did you compare Hashirama’s markings to that of Jirayia when he went Sage Mode. I hope Naruto can get cool face paint like that! But I don’t think he is. I think what Hashi’s and Jirayias Sage Modes where unfished, that’s why they had markings like that on their face. I think Naruto has the purest natural energy possible, thats why he doesn’t have markings on him.

Nice breakdown Tenrai, you almost always manage to bring up stuff I wouldn’t for the life of me have spotted or thought of myself.
I agree with thelaughingwiseman above, Naruto’s sage mode seems to be better perfected, causing absence of facial lines (sorry, had to).
I also think Hashirama’s technique has everything to do with Tsunade’s Creation Rebirth. Mind that her technique is one of the top /medical/ jutsu known. I cannot recall at what point in the manga it happened, but I do remember Madara claiming that Hashirama also possessed the greatest medical abilities in his time, which still surpassed Tsunade’s current abilities.
To me it seems perfectly reasonable he may have tried to combine a form of Sage mode and cell recreation. With all the hax the Uchiha are throwing around, it’s not that far-fetched to have a combination of techniques that give a near unlimited chakra supply plus the abilty to use this chakra for instant recovery from injury, especially for the god of shinobi.

I like the idea of Hashirama’s sage mode being the purest form of it. And the others are just variations of his original sage transformations. However we will see what happens to Naruto once he finally merges Sage and Kurama chakra together. Kurama said his chakra control was immense so lets hope this happens soon!

I think the bijuu shuriken was more symbolic than anything. And wow is the collision between the summon from hashirama and susanoo covered Kurama is gonna be BIG!

Fukusaku did say that Naruto had achieved perfect Sage Mode, so I wouldn’t say that Hashirama’s version is more perfect or superior in any way. It may just be a different version.

If you look at the evidence I brought up in the breakdown, you’ll see that even Juugo’s transformation is also considered to be a form of Sage Mode and we know for a fact that Kabuto achieved his own version of it as well. None of them looked exactly the same as the other, but we have no evidence to suggest that any of them is inferior or superior to the other either. I will, however, say that Naruto’s seems to give the biggest physical strength boost, as shown when he was able to throw both Pein’s animal summons and even Kurama as if they were toys despite their size.

Still, it’s hard to compare all of them to one another unless their actual users end up in a battle using these transformations.

I think we could see Sage Mode as something akin to a super saiyan or Kaio-ken transformation, in that how strong it makes its user is dependent on how strong the user actually was before activating it. In other words, Hashirama, who was already powerful before transforming, will see a proportionally significant boost to that already potent strength while someone like Juugo, who is a lot weaker, will also be proportionally weaker in his cursed seal transfromation, even if the quality of the transformation itself is the same.

Great breakdown Ten! Really insghtful and interesting perspective on all the things that have been goin on lately. Even though I’m quite the action junkie, hopefully we’ll get a little dialog this week that fills in some holes in the story of Madara and Hashirama this week

I wonder what Sasuke is going to end up choosing to do. I wonder if maybe sooner or later Naruto will learn Suusenju (maybe even from Tsunade’s notes or something, or the other kage,) and, as you said it appears to have to do with energy, the Susanoo. I wonder if they’ll combine?

According to http://www.mangareader.net/naruto/621/10 to http://www.mangareader.net/naruto/621/12, it looks like Hashirama, was collecting Natural Energy similar to how Naruto does it except Hashirama have his hands in a praying position. Also, it appears he is standing still as well. Therefore, I believe he is entering in Sage Mode. However, he may also be releasing his reserve to increase the amount of Natural Energy he can absorb. That might explain the markings on his face.

The new chapter was interesting because of what Hashirama said in front of his father. I can see Naruto would have said the same thing. Also, Madara mentioned the number of brother he have/had, does that mean Izuna wasn’t born yet?

Mandara was a lot like naruto when he was younger….when I first read it on mangapanda it madeit seem like mandara was the one to bring up the alliance to hashirama but
Magastream made it something different. Tobirama was still calm and collected at and early age. I wonder how strong their little brother was since it took 4 ninjas to kill him.

@Ten I agree I hate when kids die in manga also…I have a question wasn’t the reason mandara left the leaf was because his brother died? But in this chapter it said that all 4 of his brothers were diseases.

Remember, when we first heard about the history of Senju and Uchiha, it was from Obito (Tobi at the time) when he was explaining it to Sasuke. Now we already know that there were quite a few inconsistencies in Obito’s version of that history so it wouldn’t surprise me if his depiction of Madara’s desertion was not entirely accurate.

Obito made it sound like Madara was opposed to peace between the Senju and Uchiha and yet this chapter seems to imply that he actually sought piece as an alternative to the current bloodshed of his time. So if it wasn’t an alliance that drove Madara away, what was it? I suppose we’ll have to wait and see but I do presume it may have something to do with Izuna.

Lastly, Madara’s words about how he *Had* that many brothers doesn’t necessarily mean they are all deceased. It may just mean the number has decreased but there may still be one or two alive at the time he said it.

@ten your right. I feel stupid for being blinded by my search for a plot hole that I became biased while reading it. I feel like kishi is rushing through this hopefully he takes a few chapter to show mandaras change in personality.

@ Tenrai, I understood that little Madara desired peace, but at the same his pride is evident. We don’t know the age difference between him and his bros, but they couldn’t have died too much earlier. He isn’t sulking or even sad. Atleast that isn’t the vibe I get. He calls his desire wishfull thinking and doesn’t accept looking weak. But I also agree with you in that whatever dashed his compromise feelings must have something to to with Izuna.

I have an idea for something that could substitute the bubblition entries.

You get a panel from the manga, one that has some funny image when taken out of context. Then you wipe blank any speech bubble present, and ask the community to fill in the blanks and to write a caption that sums up or enhances that said in the speech bubble with something funny.